My Lips Are Blue?

Did you ever spend time swimming as a kid?

If you were anything like me, you didn’t care what the temperature of the water was, you just wanted to get in it and stay in it.

Well, except for the moments you jumped out to cannonball someone, of course.

My own children loved swimming when they were little. They could spend hours in the pool splashing, making up games, creating an enormous whirlpool…but rarely actually swimming.

And at some point I’d call them out of the pool for lunch or a snack, and they reluctantly got out, wrapped up in their towel, and then I’d try to convince them to sit in the sun to warm up.

And one of the first things I would ask them was “Aren’t you cold? Maybe it’s time to be done for today.”

And with their bodies visibly shivering, and lips blue as a Smurf, they would violently shake their heads saying “No! I’m not cold! Mom- it’s too fun to stop!!!”

Because of all the fun they were having, they didn’t recognize that they were actually pretty cold. They didn’t know their lips were blue. They wouldn’t admit they were shivering, because they didn’t want me to tell them to stay out of the pool.

And you know what? Even if the clouds came and the wind picked up, they’d rush through whatever food I sat before them because they couldn’t wait to get back in!

Isn’t this just like us? Well, like me, anyway.

People who love us can call us out on something we need to get away from. Or maybe God Himself tells us its time to get out, or be done with that thing, walk away, but we say no.

We don’t recognize that our lips are blue, and we’re shivering. We don’t want to be told to get out because what we’re doing is fun, or exciting.

Or everyone else is doing it and enjoying it.

And just like that child who stays in the pool too long, we don’t realize that if we don’t get out, we’ll actually hurt ourselves. Hypothermia is a thing in the summer. Everyone else around us can see we need to get out, take a break, walk away…spend time with the Son.

But we don’t see it.

It’s pretty important that we surround ourselves with people who care about our spiritual well-being; people who will lovingly call us out when we need to step away from something, who will tell us our lips are blue.

People who will help redirect us when we want to go running back to the water.

We need to be that for the people in our lives, too. And we all need to work on taking good advice when we hear it. Lord, I’m trying!

Proverbs 12:15
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.

Proverbs 1:5
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

Ecclesiastes 7:5-6
(5) It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
(6) For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.

Psalm 141:3-5
(3) Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
(4) Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.
(5) Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.